Study links poor access to GPs with greater use of emergency services

Good access to general practice is associated with fewer visits to hospital emergency departments, finds new research that will add fuel to the current debate over stretched emergency services in England.

A cross sectional, population based analysis of patients registered with 7856 general practices in England was published in the open access journal PLoS One this week.1 Between April 2010 and March 2011 patients in these practices made 4 537 622 self referred visits to hospital …